The Killer's Art (19 page)

‘No, but Wallin was going to be Hugo Malmberg’s business partner,’ said Knutas. ‘And he was planning to move to Stockholm. It’s also possible that Malmberg could be dealing in stolen artwork. Maybe they were both mixed up in it together.’

‘I’ve checked out Malmberg,’ said Kihlgård. ‘He doesn’t have a police record, and his professional life is spotless. I also talked to him on the phone. He flatly denies having had a relationship with Egon Wallin, and he said he didn’t think Wallin was gay. He claims he would have noticed if he was.’

‘So what about Mattis Kalvalis? Have you talked to him?’

‘Yes, and his reaction seemed genuine. He burst out laughing when I asked if they’d had a homosexual relationship. “That old guy?” were his exact words. “Not on your life!” On the other hand, Mattis was convinced that Wallin was gay. He said he gave off that kind of vibe, even though Wallin had never said anything overt.’

Kihlgård looked at his watch. ‘Well, I’ve got to run. I have a dinner date,’ he said with delight.

‘Really? With whom?’

‘I’m not telling.’ Kihlgård gave him a wink, laughed heartily, and left the room.

When Knutas was alone, he began filling his pipe again.

As far as Wallin’s involvement with stolen paintings was concerned, they’d hit a brick wall and at the moment couldn’t seem to find out anything more. The search of his Stockholm flat had produced absolutely nothing. The hard drives of his computers were missing. Wallin’s book-keeping and records of his bank accounts were all immaculate. There was nothing to indicate any sort of irregularity. Monika Wallin had done her work perfectly.

Knutas was feeling extremely frustrated about the fact that they had no idea how to proceed in terms of Wallin’s art galleries. They had checked out his prospective business partners in Stockholm but again had found nothing of interest.

He began making another careful study of the guest list for the gallery opening. He gave a start when he noticed the name of Erik Mattson
from Bukowski’s Auction House on the list. He had not received a personal invitation; instead, a general invitation had been sent to the auction house. The firm had sent two representatives, and one of them was Erik Mattson.
How strange,
thought Knutas. Mattson had valued the stolen paintings found in Egon Wallin’s home, but he hadn’t said a word about attending the opening when Knutas talked to him on the phone.

He punched in the number for Bukowski’s and spoke to the head curator, who was in the midst of preparing for the big spring auction taking place the following week. The curator confirmed that they had sent two colleagues to Gotland on the weekend in question. They had a valuation to do in Burgsvik on Friday, and then they were supposed to attend the gallery opening on Saturday. Since both men were experts in modern art, it was important for them to keep up-to-date with what was happening in the art world. And all indications were that Mattis Kalvalis was going to be a big name.

Knutas asked to speak to Erik Mattson, but he wasn’t in. The curator gave him Mattson’s mobile number. No one answered, so Knutas left a message on his voicemail.

It was now past six, and it was Saturday. Knutas searched for Mattson’s home phone number on the internet, but without any luck. Apparently he had an unlisted number. He tried the mobile number again, but without success. Well, it would just have to wait. But Knutas felt an uneasiness gnawing at him as he drove home.

It was almost dusk, and the sky was tinged with crimson. That was one of the things that people who visited Gotland always talked about. The light. That it was different on Gotland. They were probably right. Even though he was so used to it, occasionally he still stopped to look at the special glow that settled over the island.

Knutas’s heart belonged to Gotland, without question. He had deep roots here; his family had lived on the island as far back as anyone cared to research his genealogy. His parents lived on a farm in Kappelshamn in the northwest. They were now past retirement age, but they continued to bake flatbread, which they delivered to island restaurants and shops. The bread was famous. Some tourists even claimed that they
went to Gotland just to buy that bread. It wasn’t available anywhere else.

Knutas had a good relationship with his parents, but he preferred to keep them at a safe distance. When he and Lina decided to buy a summerhouse, his father tried to convince him to find one in Kappelshamn. They decided instead to buy a place in nearby Lickershamn. If his parents needed help with something in the summer-time, it wouldn’t take him long to get to their house, but he didn’t really want them stopping by all the time.

Knutas had an older sister who lived in Färjestaden on the neighbouring island of Öland. He also had a twin brother who was in the military and lived on Fårö. The brothers saw each other mostly at family gatherings. Knutas usually saw his sister Lena only at Christmas and Midsummer; she was seven years older than him, and they’d never been close. But he spoke to his brother on the phone from time to time, and occasionally they went out for a bite to eat or a beer. Even though they saw each other so seldom, their relationship was easygoing and uncomplicated. Knutas thought that was probably because they were twins. They always knew where they stood with each other, without constantly needing to re-establish contact. Whenever his brother came to Visby for a visit, he would stay overnight. The children were very fond of their uncle. Petra and Nils enjoyed listening to his tall tales about military life, and he could always keep them laughing.

When Knutas turned into his driveway, he caught sight of Lina through the kitchen window and was suddenly seized with melancholy. To think that people could live side by side and keep such secrets from each other, the way Egon and Monika had done. He was appalled by the idea that a woman could go around believing that she had a good marriage when the exact opposite was true. And then to find out that her spouse was cold-heartedly planning to move away and start a new life in a completely different place without saying a word. For Knutas it was incomprehensible that a person could be capable of such betrayal. He felt sorry for Monika Wallin. Even though she herself had taken a lover, she had still been thoroughly deceived by her husband.

W
ith a deep sigh Johan dropped his suitcase on the floor of his flat. Soon he would have only one address, and the idea certainly appealed to him.

Max Grenfors had rung him on Sunday afternoon, just as he and Emma had decided to order Thai food and rent a movie for the evening. Typical. For a week he’d enjoyed living with Emma and Elin, but now he’d been forced to return to Stockholm. Yet it was perfectly understandable that he’d been summoned back by head office. At the moment there was nothing more to report about the murder, and half of the Stockholm reporters were off with flu. So in the meantime, Pia would have to hold the fort on Gotland.

He started by opening the windows to air his flat. The two potted plants that he owned were drooping badly. He gave them a good watering and then went through his post. The substantial pile that he’d found in the hall consisted mostly of bills, as well as a number of advertising brochures, and a postcard showing a tropical paradise; it was from Andreas, who was on holiday in Brazil.

Johan sank on to the sofa and looked around. His ground-floor one-bedroom flat in the Södermalm district wasn’t especially spacious or remarkable, but the location meant that it would be easy to sublet. He just had to get permission from the building owner.

He looked at his worn leather sofa, the oak coffee table that his mother had given him, and the Billy bookshelf from Ikea. He wouldn’t miss any of his furniture. On the other hand, he had to take his CD collection and player with him to Gotland. Not surprisingly, Emma’s
ex-husband Olle had laid claim to the stereo after their divorce.

He went over to the kitchen and stood there a moment, leaning against the doorpost. How spartan everything looked compared to Emma’s fully furnished big house in Roma. The kitchen held nothing more than a small drop-leaf table and two chairs next to the window. He saw nothing he wanted to take with him, except possibly the sandwich-toaster, which in his bachelor existence he had used constantly. Actually, it might be a relief not to see it again. Nor did the bedroom contain much to shout about. The bed was covered with an ugly old spread, and it lacked a headboard. It dawned on him that he’d made no real effort to furnish a home for himself. He’d had this flat for over ten years and was comfortable here, but it was as if he’d been using it as some sort of way-station. Not a real home. It now seemed anonymous and inhospitable, somehow empty and lifeless. It would be great to move out.

He listened to his phone messages. His mother had called several times; she seemed to have forgotten that he was working on Gotland. Two of his three brothers had also left messages. He missed them and hoped that he’d have a chance to see them while he was back in Stockholm. Johan was the oldest and had consciously taken on the role of paterfamilias when his father died several years earlier. Luckily, his mother had now found a new love interest. She still lived in her own house, but she seemed to get on splendidly with her sweetheart, and that made Johan happy. Not just for her sake, but also for his own. She didn’t need him in the same way as she had in the past. He thought about how things would go now that he and Emma had decided to move in together and get married. Johan would be the first of his brothers to take a wife. It was a big step, a serious decision. He didn’t want to tell anyone about it. Not just yet.

A
nxiety crept over him towards evening. Erik had always thought there was something unpleasant about Sunday nights. The weekend was almost over, and the working week was just around the corner, with its responsibilities, routines, commitments – and he had to be able to function. That alone could fill him with panic. He was lying on the sofa in the living room, staring at the ceiling. A whisky would deaden the feeling of emptiness, but he wasn’t going to drink today. He never did on Sundays.

Instead he got up and took out a few old photo albums from his childhood. He put on a CD of Maria Callas and began turning the pages. A picture of himself at the age of seven on the Möja boat dock. Hoisting the sail on the boat with his father, and with a friend in the dinghy. As a child he had loved the Stockholm archipelago. His family always went sailing for several weeks in the summer. They would go out to Möja, Sandhamn and Utö, attend the dances on the wharves, and eat dinner at the elegant inns. His father would come along, and that always made his mother happier and more relaxed. With her husband at her side she would forget about the irritation she felt towards Erik, although she made no attempt to hide her feelings when the two of them were at home alone and his father was off travelling. She liked to sunbathe on holiday, and her thin, taut body acquired a deep tan; she even put on a little weight. It was as if the tension in her face eased, and she became more like the cheerful girl she may once have been; the one Erik thought was still there under that stern exterior.

Erik grew up as an only child, living with his parents in a luxurious
house in the fashionable suburb of Djursholm. He attended private schools and then majored in economics at Östra Real secondary school. His future was decided in advance. He was going to follow in his father’s footsteps and go to business school, get top marks, and then start working

for the family business. No other alternatives were ever discussed.

Erik managed fairly well during his school years, in spite of his cold-hearted mother and absent father. He’d always had an easy time making friends, and the socializing he did outside the house made it possible for him to survive, year after year. He longed fervently for the day when he could pack his bags and leave home.

It was when he was a teenager that the change happened. There was a new boy in class who was interested in art; he went to all the gallery openings in town, and he also painted in his spare time. He was so enthusiastic and captivating that several of his classmates joined him on the weekends when he would go to Liljevalch Art Centre and the National Museum, Waldemarsudde and small, obscure art galleries. Erik showed the most interest of any of the boys. He was particularly taken with Swedish art from the early twentieth century. It was then that he discovered ‘The Dying Dandy’ and became utterly overwhelmed by it. Back then he didn’t understand why the painting had such a strong effect on him; he just knew that it resonated with something in him that was deep and hidden and over which he had no control. He started reading everything he could find about Dardel and the paintings of the early 1900s in general. He even went so far as to begin studying art history along with his other subjects. He was planning to keep his interest secret from his parents for as long as possible.

But it wasn’t just his interest in art that complicated his life during those years. He began feeling himself drawn more and more to his own gender; he was totally uninterested in women. Whenever his friends talked about girls and sex, he would laugh along with them and contribute some tall tales about his own advanced sexual experiences. In reality, Erik was furtively looking at men. On the bus, on the street, and in the showers at the gym. It was the male body, not the female, that interested him. Since he was painfully aware of his parents’ old-fashioned
and narrow-minded view of homosexuality, he did everything he could to suppress his attraction to men. But then one day he had his feelings confirmed.

His family was supposed to spend a weekend on Gotska Sandön, staying overnight in a cabin. On the ferry ride over, they met a pleasant family from Göteborg whose son was the same age as Erik. Late that night, while the adults were still up drinking wine, the two youths left the party and set off for a walk along the sandy beaches that surrounded the small island. It was just before Midsummer, and the night was bright and warm. They lay down next to each other on a sand dune and gazed up at the sky while they talked. Erik liked Joel, as the boy was called, and they had a lot in common. They soon began confiding in each other, and Erik told his new friend about his problems at home. Joel was kind and understanding, and all of a sudden they were lying in each other’s arms. Erik would never forget that night. They exchanged addresses and phone numbers, but they never contacted each other again.